Reciprocating floor conveyors are a relatively recent development. Basically, they comprise at least one group of at least three elongated floor members and a hydraulic drive system which operates to drive at least a majority of the floor members in unison in the desired conveying direction, and to retract them individually. Systems are in use in which all of the floor members are driven in unison, in the desired conveying direction, and are then individually retracted sequentially. It has also been proposed to drive a majority of the floor slat members in the desired conveying direction while at the same time retracting the remaining floor slat members. The present invention has application with both types of systems.
For background purposes, reference is made to U. S. Pat. No. 4,143,760, granted Mar. 13, 1979, to U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,963, granted Mar. 20, 1979 and to U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,587, granted Jan. 22, 1980, all to Olaf A. Hallstrom. Reference is also made to my aforementioned co-pending application Ser. No. 477,767, to my aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,492,303 and to my co-pending application Ser. No. 346,856, filed on Feb. 8, 1982, and entitled Drive/Guide Systems for a Reciprocating Floor Conveyor, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,285, granted Jan. 8, 1985.
Earlier forms of reciprocating floor conveyors are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 2,629,504, granted in February of 1953, to Peterson; by U.S. Pat. No. 2,973,856, granted in March of 1961 to Brooks; by U. S. Pat. No. 3,534,875, granted in October of 1970 to Hallstrom; by West German Patent Publication No. 1,296,087, published in May of 1969; and by U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,290, granted Sept. 16, 1975 to Caughey. These patents are not particularly pertinent to the subject invention and require no further comment, but should be considered for purposes of putting the subject invention into proper perspective relative to the prior art.